The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America have released the final ballot for this year's Nebula Awards.
Winners will be announced at a banquet during Nebula Awards Weekend in Tempe, Arizona, on Saturday, May 6, 2006.

This year's ballot includes the new Andre Norton Award, created by SFWA to honor young adult SF/F novels and named in honor of the late SFWA Grand Master. While not technically a Nebula Award, it is voted on by members in the same way the Nebula Awards are.

This year's final ballot includes first time Nebula nominations for Terry Pratchett, Susanna Clarke, and John C. Wright (in the novel category), Paul Witcover and Albert Cowdrey (novella), Daniel Abraham and Paolo Bacigalupi (novelette), and Margo Lanagan and Anne Harris (short story).

Among other novel nominees, Joe Haldeman has won 4 Nebulas in 7 nominations, most recently in 1999 for 1997 novel Forever Peace. Geoff Ryman has 2 previous Nebula nominations both in the novella category, with no wins, while Jack McDevitt has 10 nominations among all four fiction categories, including novel nominations last year and the year before, with no wins. Ryman's Air has previously won the Sunburst Award and been a finalist for the Philip K. Dick and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards. Haldeman's Camouflage was co-winner of last year's James Tiptree, Jr. Award. Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell has already won the Hugo, World Fantasy, Mythopoeic, and Locus Awards.

Of other novella nominees, Robert J. Sawyer has 2 Nebula nominations and 1 win, both in the novel category. His nominated story "Identity Theft" won the UPC Science Fiction Award in late 2004. Kelly Link was nominated and won for novelette "Louise's Ghost", but has no other prior Nebula nominations. Bud Sparhawk has 2 prior novella nominations, in 1998 and 2003.

In the novelette category, nominee James Patrick Kelly has 8 previous nominations among the three short fiction categories, but has never won a Nebula. Both Eileen Gunn and Leslie What have been nominated and won a single time each, for short stories "Coming to Terms" last year and "The Cost of Doing Business" in 2000 respectively. Kelly Link's nominee "The Faery Handbag" won the Hugo and Locus Awards last year for best novelette, and was a finalist for the World Fantasy and British SF Association awards. Bacigalupi's "The People of Sand and Slag" was a Hugo Award nominee last year.

In the short story category, Carol Emshwiller won in 2003 for short story "Creature" and had 2 more nominations in 2004. Nancy Kress has 8 previous nominations, spread among all four fiction categories, and has won 3 times, most recently for novelette "The Flowers of Aulit Prison" in 1998. K.D. Wentworth and Richard Bowes have 2 previous nominations each, and Dale Bailey 1 nomination, with no wins. Margo Lanagan's story "Singing My Sister Down" won the World Fantasy Award and 2 Aurealis Awards last year, and was a finalist or runner-up for the Bram Stoker, Theodore Sturgeon, International Horror Guild, Ditmar, and Locus Awards in 2005.

The Nebula Awards are voted on and presented by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. They were first presented in 1966 for works published in 1965. Current eligibility rules allow any particular work to accumulate recommendations from SFWA members for 12 months following publication, with all works receiving the minimum number of recommendations by the end of each year placed on a preliminary ballot and voted to determine final ballot nominees. An effect of this system is that some works do not reach the final ballot until the second year following their original publication; thus this year's ballot includes works from 2004 and 2005. (See SFWA's Nebula Rules for details.) In addition, jurists for each category have the option of adding a nominee to those from the preliminary ballot, an option most juries exercise. (This year's preliminary ballot is posted here.)